This labour past, by Bridewell all descend, (As morning prayer, and flagellation end)[325] 270 To where Fleet-ditch with disemboguing streams Rolls the large tribute of dead dogs to Thames, The king of dikes! than whom no sluice of mud With deeper sable blots the silver flood. 'Here strip, my children! here at once leap in, Here prove who best can dash through thick and thin,[326] And who the most in love of dirt excel, Or dark dexterity of groping well. Who flings most filth, and wide pollutes around The stream, be his the weekly journals[327] bound; 280 A pig of lead to him who dives the best; A peck of coals a-piece[328] shall glad the rest.'
In naked majesty Oldmixon stands,[329] And, Milo-like, surveys his arms and hands; Then sighing, thus, 'And am I now threescore? Ah why, ye gods! should two and two make four?' He said, and climb'd a stranded lighter's height, Shot to the black abyss, and plunged downright. The senior's judgment all the crowd admire, Who but to sink the deeper, rose the higher. 290
Next Smedley dived;[330] slow circles dimpled o'er The quaking mud, that closed, and oped no more. All look, all sigh, and call on Smedley lost; 'Smedley!' in vain, resounds through all the coast.
Then Hill[331] essay'd; scarce vanish'd out of sight, He buoys up instant, and returns to light: He bears no token of the sable streams, And mounts far off among the swans of Thames.
True to the bottom, see Concanen creep, A cold, long-winded, native of the deep: 300 If perseverance gain the diver's prize, Not everlasting Blackmore this denies: No noise, no stir, no motion can'st thou make, The unconscious stream sleeps o'er thee like a lake.
Next plunged a feeble, but a desperate pack, With each a sickly brother at his back:[332] Sons of a day! just buoyant on the flood, Then number'd with the puppies in the mud. Ask ye their names? I could as soon disclose The names of these blind puppies as of those. 310 Fast by, like Niobe (her children gone) Sits Mother Osborne,[333] stupified to stone! And monumental brass this record bears, 'These are,--ah no! these were, the gazetteers!'[334]
Not so bold Arnall;[335] with a weight of skull, Furious he dives, precipitately dull. Whirlpools and storms his circling arm invest, With all the might of gravitation bless'd. No crab more active in the dirty dance, Downward to climb, and backward to advance. 320 He brings up half the bottom on his head, And loudly claims the journals and the lead.